


A void-damned tragedy

by Vuetyris



Category: Warframe
Genre: Charity Donation, Gen, Life Debt, Modified body, Repaying Debt, Spoilers, Straw purchase, Trans Character, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-01-09
Packaged: 2019-10-07 00:52:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17355878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vuetyris/pseuds/Vuetyris
Summary: Ticker's not one to provide problems, but solutions. A list embedded of lives that can be saved from menial labor, from organ repossession, from being brain-shelved on some forsaken Corpus vessel.But she can only solve so many problems - not even her own.[ Includes spoilers for 'OLD MATE' rank with Solaris United, and Ticker's Codex Fragments ]





	A void-damned tragedy

**Author's Note:**

> -+- Kudos, sharing, and comments are encouraged! -+-

It is the clamor of the elevator lift that pulls her from a daydreaming stupor.

An averted gaze is brought back from the dredge of fragmented thoughts, cast to the mechanical strumming before her – beyond the balcony that overlooks the menial coolant filtration maintenance pool. Ticker’s cerebral casing follows the rising mechanical sighs as the lift crawls back into the oppressing chill above, beyond the transparent ceiling that stares beyond the surface filtration system looming precariously over Fortuna’s operations. Far beyond the neon lights; the cold shiver echoes of hammer falls and gut-shaking thumps.

Leaning forth, a sigh crawls through the audio processors in her chest, elbows resting against her knees as wondering lulls through tired thoughts. Things beyond the physical… her grip goes lax as she stares at the distant exposed Venusian stone.

And snaps back into attention as an object slips against her thigh –

Her datapad!

Fumbling with a grunt, Ticker finds hold of the device once more; holding it half tilted against the shin of her boot. “Damn,” slips. She’s careful to secure it back onto her lap, shuffling to even out the grid hatch lying over her thighs.

Despite contemplating the attention seeking dot in the corner of the datapad’s message system, she huddles her gloved plan over it, hiding it from her sight as she looks back to the elevator lift. Where Eudico’s talking to a small crowd of strangers.

“Close to busy hours, ain’t it,” her thoughts drift… and her grip affirms.

Another plip sings from the device.

One leg over the other, Ticker drops herself from the table sat beside the balcony railing with an exhale, sight turning back to the datapad as she wanders around the table, to overlook the glows of distant activity beyond where she resides. Enclosed warehouse windows bloom in the eve of the morning hours, glinting through the cavernous open center. Strung electronics sway in the shutter of the enigmatic filtration system – overlooking lamps beaming down from overhead. She looks beyond it, far past the tubing that lines the walls, further than around the corner of the hard labor complex.

Beneath her index finger, the pulsating tone of awaiting messages from neighboring outposts, from outposts reaching far beyond the frequent shuttle transports and the tunnel burrows that connect the remote locations. Holding her vision away from the overworked device in her hands, she takes in the requests from the bond-assistant networks. There’s always more that need help… it takes another moment before she browses through the resources being requested, taking herself back to location in front of her personal space.

Her rig makes the ribbed gate shudder as she leans, index and thumb flipping through the pleas for parcel assistances. Thousands of credits, hundred of thousands of credits, a laundry list of resources that are to be used to pay off the weight of the loans. Items found in the vallis above, resources that take weeks to be taxied into the inner system, a seeking for replacements of ‘stolen goods’ that make her reserved features flinch.

Stolen goods to be repaid by whatever poor courier was responsible – not uncommon.

As she scrolls through the wave of collected requests, minor chatter notes in the corner of the datapad. From the east end, from the gravefield outpost to the north; echoing sympathetic apologies. Another accident happened, a truck split and ruined the fresh supply from the vallis storage cores. In diligence her cadence comes through her vocabulary. That things happen out of any of their control, as soon as those items become available, she’ll send the parcel out through the network tunnels for quick repayment.

‘Thank you so much,’ the person on the other end of the channel messages back.

And only a short stint of silence fills the space before another message blips – confirming Ticker had received the bond request through the network. That the previous request that have been fulfilled are on their way. “I’ve seen to it that the items are securely in transport, stardust,” she chirps from her post, taking a glance up as she hears the lift hum to life. Clientele.

Before looking away, she checks on a previous case that still lies open. An overseer in another outpost. Three dependents. An industrial accident, busted a case of argon crystals in a spaceport – threatened with brain shelving.

They personally sent their bond to Ticker the other day cycle…

“Got good people hoping to see another sunrise, Stardust,” she sighs, datapad tapping against the metal surface. The bond requests already transferred to her internal recollection. “Are you here for donations, love; or bond forgiveness? Either are good news.”

Ahead of her, another day of delegating whom is to live another day – until the blasted corpus ask for more money as ‘compensation’ for whichever incident preceded the time-ticking bounties on people’s lives. She rackets through the trove of those unfortunate; a courier strapped for financial security that they made an incidental mistake, the ex-mercantile recently paying off a loan after they paid off their father’s removal from being brain shelved. The new start that got grinded up by machinery and shoved back into their place of work and forced to pay for their new enhancements. The mother with three dependents selling off her organs to keep herself afloat – just another million to defer the bonds passed onto her by her late parents. The absentee that wandered too far off site and got reprimanded – another stack of payments to their own pillar of paternal loans. It’s the third time they’ve shown up on her list…

A guard threatened with brain-shelving after they claim being unwell, not at their post in corpus punctuality. Ones tied to the undercurrent of bond repayment – they weren’t slippery enough and got caught by the tax-men.

With ease Ticker rattles off the bonds left on her list short and sweet – Their position, dependents, relationships and all associated personality markers. The chime of total bodily repossession or the read out of 60 days hard labor are spoken with the same relative ease – an emotional detachment that relies on her casual demeanor. Getting emotionally invested never lead her to pleasant things… as she gives a casual glance back to her storage unit. A disembodied glove left in the open.

It goes dismissed by the front of her consciousness; turning back to the chroma shuffling through their own manifest of resources. Allocating and matching those they can afford to pay off, stumbling through their words. Flustered, Ticker can assume as she waits. They barely have enough to pay of two additional bonds.

“We can only do what we can, darlin’,” Ticker’s cerebral casing tilts in response, transposed sight looking over the short stature frame. A payment of polymers, rubedo, and alloy plates, a barely short change of credits to fulfill another two’s bonds. But its just enough for the mother, paying off the new-start in another outpost. “Life’s a ride; you can only help so much.” Beneath the shutter vent, a weary smile.

“Thanks, ma’am,” the warframe fumbles, passing off the container details to their cephalon. “Just wish I could do more, the items will be on the dock in an hour!” They chirp, flexible features standing at attention in an adoring attentive display.

Ticker laughs, “don’t worry, Stardust, I’m here all day. The transports not going out for another three to the specific outpost, you got time.”

Beyond the warframe’s sight, Ticker watches the countdown for the overseer clicks over to one hour left. For such an occasion? It’s hard for her to avoid biting her lip, lingering against hope. Thankful her cerebral casing’s display doesn’t correspond with the distress.

They’re counting on her to find someone to pay off the argon crystal damage; It’s rare for someone to have that much argon sitting around, nonetheless enough to survive the transport. Even when she first got the message… the outlook was bleak.

“Take care, stardust,” she waves off the chroma as they bound around the corner, their hand held against their strange flexing scalp as their voice chirps.

Ticker might never get used to how… distinctly different they are to her, to anyone she may have once known; and her hand curls into a fist. Different, but not unfamiliar – digitally, she checks the two bonds off from needing funds. Once her contact on the tunnel docks confirms the shipment, then she’ll let the retrieving persons know they have nothing to worry about.

But until then, it’s onto the next potential client, giving hope to more unfortunates.

Slowly the list begins to chisel away, talking thousands of credits she’ll never see; resources she’ll never touch but corresponds to different drop off points for the future shipments. Can’t be too predictable beneath the Corpus stranglehold. “Chek, chek,” beams across her coms unit, “tube glinty gots the goods.”

“Thank you, Ruub,” Ticker recalls back, double crossing the bonds paid off by the earlier chroma.

“Gotsa note, interested?”

“Later, Ruub,” Ticker answers, turning her attention back to the stranger flicking through their resources. In the corner of her vision, she finally dismisses the delayed debt by the overseer – four hours pass the due. Far too late to do anything about it now; she sighs. Not everyone can be saved.

“Are your considerations in order?” She notions over to the cloaked figure hovering at the table.

Their legs, MOA’d up, pad about anxiously, gloved hands tapping against the datapad in either double check or triples. Ticker can’t be certain as they keep it tilted out of either of her views, the clumsy tech held in tight uncertainty. Under her observation, as Ticker makes impatient idle pace, they throw their hood back over the mess of their hair. “Ye-yeah,” they call over, huddling the datapad against their chest.

Novice in the trade, she assumes.

“I’ve got a sum of polymer, plastids… uh, Gallium, and Neurodes. I want to donate them to the fund.”

Suspicion queries. “I work in inventory transportation, Stardust. You have a location and credits?”

The stranger fumbles through a pack buried beneath their cloak, MOA legs pacing to and fro as she digs through the contents for something. “I assure you, I’m not a plant,” she fumbles with a mingling smile on her flushed squared features, voice trembling. “I’ve – got a shipment for you from a tenno, at least all options lead me to that conclusion. Left me this note about a drop a few days ago with this inventory.” And she hustles a folded fabric to Ticker – it’s been forever since she had to hold some form of writing.

Sure enough, written in plain was a line of coordinates from a tenno-tone frequency. A list of resources rattles off beneath an albeit simple commlink combination; just having writing in some form would be enough to put the girl in some trouble. Ticker glances over to her; the code, one she dials privately, checks out.

“How’d you get a hold of this information?” A simple question; but its never exactly simple.

The woman fumbles with her pack, throwing their hood back over the flutter of her hacked hair – an attempt to hide their identity, the Fortuna debt forgiver assumes.

It reminds her so much of herself… trying to escape a previous life.

“A friend of mine; a researcher from the west needed to repay his prosthetics a while a back. He went missing a few months back and – a frame delivered a parcel to me and that was tucked inside it.” Hands fiddling with their covered hood – anxious.

Hidden away from the stranger’s view, Ticker’s free to let her confusion manifest. She’s seen so many lives pass through the debt forgiveness network, she can’t willingly say she can’t really remember… the details are not uncommon, except for being a researcher. Not many higher rank Corpus seek through the network to pay off loans – most are well connected enough to solve that through their work.

But Ticker can tell her silence makes the stranger uncomfortable.

“What’s the name, stardust? Of the researcher friend of yours.” With nowhere to tuck the precarious writing, she tucks it into the crease of her body casing to dispose of later. The coordinates – already given off to another of the ventkids to investigate at the drop off time.

“Kedan; Kedan Laundras was his name,” the woman sighs, “he’s apparently doing well.” And a faint smile on her stubbled face.

With the same ease as delegating the hopeful fortunes of others, Ticker traces through the archive of payments she penned into her memory banks. Over those with too much debt, the ones just running short of repayments, the few that now languish on a brain shelf somewhere on a Corpus vessel. But he’s on her list; Mechanic turned biomechanic researcher, from the southern cap of Venus. Reliable and hard-working.

“Checks out,” Ticker notions with her palm, a confirmation the stranger is legit, “his case went through me – oof!” winds through her as the slightly taller woman pulls her into a hug. She stands stunned, awkward before the other woman pulls herself away – apologizing.

“Sorry, I’m – just glad there’s people like you out here. He, Kedan, managed to find his way off this place, and – I’ve always wondered who was able to pay off my dad’s debts when I was small. The supplies – they come from whomever Kedan’s with now.”

The smile the stranger gives off… reminds Ticker too much of the look she gives the man as she watches him work the coolant filtration system – the man that doesn’t remember their love.

“I was looking for – for how my father’s debt got repaid. And Kedan’s. And everyone else’s that have come and gone. I’m just – they’ve told me how grateful they are for people like you looking out for them.” She digs through her pack, pulling out the datapad once more. “I want to pay forward to someone else’s bond – I don’t have much to my name, but I have credits.” Handing the personal device over to Ticker, she can confirm the amount – 14 thousand credits.

Compared to the total she tended to today? Its nothing, but for someone working under the corpus?

It’s a lot.

“You’re certain you can afford the donation, stardust?”

“Yeah,” the woman smiles. “it’s fine.”

Her expression… the half-tilted smile brimmed by exhausted stubble, the dreary drifting sigh trying to find focus on Ticker’s cerebral casing for familiarity. Her raiments; they call to a higher working position, office worker perhaps. From the southern laboratories; given her friend’s location prior and position.

And its hard to vanish, and it has taken its toll on the woman.

“Give whatever you can, lovely. But don’t forget to take care of yourself,” she sighs, handing back the datapad – the 14 thousand credits exchanged. Always so poignant, deliberate… “Courier? Take good care of yourself out there.”

“Yeah,” she smiles back, creasing the striped tattoos across her cheeks. “It’s hell out there but pays well.”

It’s the last Ticker sees of her; passing around the back of the next person offering up credits and resources anew. With ease Ticker moves over to handling what they are willing to give, rattling off those still on her list. Lives like merchandise… shaken from her thoughts.

Another cycle of debt fulfillment, networking the ventkids to assure the drops are where they should be, that everything is paid in full from the transactional fees to covering their tracks. Silent transport always has its price, and its too easy to find one willing to hijack resources for high rollers. Working amongst the scavengers taught her to be resourceful, sharp; the taxmen, how to keep a low profile to provide for those on the repayment network. A single slip up won’t expose her – that she’s sure.

The comslinks, masked. The archive logs? Smeared. Scattering them makes it hard to track, the ventkids reliable in understanding the network above and below. Without them; Ticker would be hard pressed to keep it running – relying on credit transfers.

And it’s the most dangerous measure.

But, she’s good at it.

After handing off a nutrient canister to Smokefinger, she takes herself back to her post at the edge of the filtration pool. Never giving a secondary glance to a man standing on the other side of the pool with a diagnostic tool in hand. It hammers against the port all the same as the others; the ring of metal on metal that embeds itself into Fortuna’s background noise. The inconsistent hums by those she passes by onto the short lift – holding her daily nutrient allowance close at her side.

The gate of her personal storage unit clatters as she yanks it up, snapping the locks into place above her.

Spare log books are seamlessly plucked from the floor, stacked one over the other as a boot shoves over an old busted diagnostics tool. Organized chaos, that’s what it is as she steps up one crate and lands down upon another much larger. Huffing one leg to hike up against the container, forcing it out of the way, the shutters of her rib-mounted head case falls open; giving both of her sights a clear view of the opposing wall.

In one hand, the nutrient canister - an ugly little grey thing with only a tube line connection on the top, a secure valve keeping the contents inside. Never had she investigated the contents, flipping the seal off her retrieval port tucked away in the side of the modifications done to graph tech onto flesh and bone. A hiss squeals through the container as the connection between her body and the package turns tight – the seal broken with a simple pull to the valve’s locking pin and holding it up above her shoulder… and all she has to do is stare at the bleak, empty, dreaded wall.

One hand still empty – and she picks up the lone glove that has been sitting on another crate.

Ticker holds it against her lap, in front of her lower sight-line as a sigh rolls through her systems, through the muscles she bought back, the fingers that only now are hers.

Fingers intertwining with the disembodied hand… too well aware they won’t hold back.

They never will.

The mimicry of the handhold distracts her from the wall, turning to look half at the enclosure of all that remains of her former body, and the commotion of Fortuna’s productions. Shaking out the last of the nutrient canister, she holds the palm close against herself, staring off into that middling distance between sight and thought.

Another shaking of the canister – emptied.

With a drifting exhale, Ticker allows the palm to lie against her thigh as she disconnects the nutrient feed from her entry port and the reusable container. A daily deposit, to keep their enhancements from breaking down, from their joints from ceasing up and making it hard to work. Beneath sight, connected to the electronic body that houses her as a prisoner, it confirms the transfusion of material into blood and piping.

Disinterested, she tosses the canister away to pick up later.

Lying back against the wall of the open storage unit, she holds the back of the gloved palm against her stomach-region forehead, obscuring her physical sight to only electronics – perspective that closes itself off to inner records, allocating and recounting the resources and credits. That nothing has been misplaced between client and the drop off points; that manifests are accurate between her and the tunnel docks that moves the resources from Fortuna to the other outposts.

People counting on her to get it right.

Glove interlace with glove; fingers winding around unfeeling fingers that lie limp against her grip as another hand holds the enclosed forearm against the rim of her head containment. Out she stares to the hustle of activity within Fortuna. The slam of metal on metal, the steam exhaust that whistles in the distance and the mechanical shutters from the transport vessel below them.

Always active, always busy – she lifts herself from the crate, careful to lie the sentimental wrist down where a brush of dust marks its domain.

Picking up her personal datapad, she scrolls through the remaining debts seeking assistance. New ‘merchandise’ all the time. It makes her whince before the shutter of her head casing drops back down, closing her away from the view of Fortuna’s neon lights as she wanders over to the edge of the balcony.

Over on the other side of the filtration pool, Ticker sees him working hard. Conversing among himself with others working the same region.

His body posture looks…. enthusiastic.

Ticker adverts herself from contemplation, from lost love as she involves herself with the datapad held firmly against her rig. Picking through the debts once more, casual as she notices in the corner a notification that more people are logged into the underground system, more seeking assistance.

And she’s all to glad to receive their requests, looking over them as she wanders back to her usual post.

Slamming the gate of the storage area down, she secures the sentimental object out of her sight, out of mind as she resumes the dual duty of inventory cataloger, and of debt deferrer. There are people depending on her, and there are people willing to help out those in need – without a way to find them.

“Hey there, Stardust,” she welcomes another donor, “time’s running out for those on my books. What’ve you got?”


End file.
